Review: The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee

Synopsis:
Love is made of more than mere flesh and blood….

Tanith Lee is one of the most thought-provoking and imaginative authors of our time. In this unforgettably poignant novel, Lee has created a classic tale–a beautiful, tragic, erotic, and ultimately triumphant love story of the future.

For sixteen-year-old Jane, life is a mystery she despairs of ever mastering. She and her friends are the idle, pampered children of the privileged class, living in luxury on an Earth remade by natural disaster. Until Jane’s life is changed forever by a chance encounter with a robot minstrel with auburn hair and silver skin, whose songs ignite in her a desperate and inexplicable passion.

Jane is certain that Silver is more than just a machine built to please. And she will give up everything to prove it. So she escapes into the city’s violent, decaying slums to embrace a love bordering on madness. Or is it something more? Has Jane glimpsed in Silver something no one else has dared to see–not even the robot or his creators? A love so perfect it must be destroyed, for no human could ever compete?

I was really excited when Silver Metal Lover won the vote as Jenny’s book to be sent around for our group in the Travelling Book Project.

Its not a long book and its small in size so it didn’t daunt me but for a book that you’re annotating the actual binding of this book was not friendly. It was so tight that it just didn’t seem to open happily.

I know that is not a usual criticism of a book but it kind of put me off wanting to annotate which was the whole point of reading this book.

Anyway, I put aside my annoyance and kept reading regardless because I was looking forward to some romancing involving robots.

It didn’t last long.

The main character is so whiny and annoying it was a chore to read. I don’t DNF books often (only 3 this year) but this was one of them.

Nothing she said was of interest. She cried. All the time.

I did end up skimming 55 pages, mostly focusing on pre-annotated areas to see what I could contribute but even this wasn’t enough to make me go “oh hell yeah I need to actually read this book”.

I don’t particularly like romance’s any way so it is possible the characterisation is just something that is popular in this genre and she stops being this way but I had no patience for it when I was reading other books that actually held my attention (Replica by Lauren Oliver).

So yeah that is pretty much it.

Not my cuppa tea but it had good world building.

Remember:
“Who needs men when you can make love to robots”.

2 stars / 5 stars

I wont continue this duology.

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